Notes on the Organization and Layout of akdart.com

Notes on the Organization and Layout

of akdart.com

Regular readers, if any, may notice that this web site has been remodeled and reorganized to make it more readable and more easily surfable.

Every effort has been made to minimize the bandwidth occupied by this web site, thus minimizing the amount of time required to load each page. After all, not everyone has fast internet service. Accordingly, there is very little JavaScript in use, no animated GIFs, only one movie, no audio or video streams, no involuntary MIDI music, and no CGI, BIN, ASP, CFM, XML, DHTML, JSP, or SSL stuff. There is a PHP program for the hit counter on each page, but that shouldn't slow you down much.

As you can see on the front page, akdart.com has no frames, no banner ads, no annoying pop-up boxes, no shopping carts, and no paid advertising on any page. This web site accepts no advertising, sponsorships, grants, donations, royalties, gifts, finder's fees, commissions, reimbursement, inducements, or corporate subsidy of any kind; is not compensated for listing products and services; and is not sustained, endorsed or approved by any political, special interest or parent organization.

There is a handy Site Index which I recommend, especially to first-time visitors.

Other recent additions include the icon shown on recent versions of Mozilla and other browsers. (My currently preferred browsers are Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6 and Safari 2.0.) New features on this web site, if any, are listed here shortly after they're implemented.

All the HTML code on this web site has been written by one person with a plain text editor. When I was using Windows 98, the editor was usually Edit Pad Lite, although I sometimes used Microsoft Notepad or good old Microsoft Edit. Since mid-2004 I have been using TextWrangler on my son's new PowerMac G5. TextWrangler works well with Transmit, which is an excellent FTP program for the G5.

Aside from keeping meaningful content on the pages, one of my goals is the construction of a professional quality web site without the use of power tools (like Front Page Express), just to show that it can be done. A secondary goal is a web site free of spelling errors and typographical errors without the use of spell checking software.

I try to avoid making or propagating statements which are obviously false, misleading, or maliciously deceptive, except in parts of my Disclaimer, of course. You may find some of the opinions expressed on this site — and the sites to which it is linked — to be abrasive, offensive or even inflammatory, and you can always go browse somewhere else on the internet, but I encourage you to explore the entire site and test your assumptions, especially if you ordinarily get all your information from television. Most of the material on this web site is based upon critical thinking and healthy skepticism, which are largely absent in places like TV newsrooms and the halls of Congress.

This is not just some crackpot's web site. There's no mention of UFO's, chemtrails, black helicopters, the Knights of Malta, Freemasonry, or the Trilateral Commission, and hardly anything mentioned about the Pope, the Council on Foreign Relations, or the UN taking over the world.

On the other hand, my opinions are a little too cynical for some people, because I tend to be very skeptical of TV news reports and anything federal government officials say. There have been several major events over the last 50 years that the US government (I am convinced) has lied about, or about which it has withheld the whole truth.

For example, many people are obsessed with the Kennedy assassination, and people still come from all over the world to examine the crime scene in downtown Dallas, because the official explanation doesn't add up, and the majority of Americans don't believe it. (Tourists are there all day, every day.) Other people take pleasure in mocking "conspiracy theorists" even in cases where conspiracy is evident. It isn't easy swimming against the current of television-guided public perceptions. After all, if you discovered the truth about the Kennedy assassination — or anything else — and it didn't match the official story, who would believe it? (If the government retains possession of all the physical evidence, how can you argue with their story?) I think there are a lot of holes in the Warren Commission's findings, but that case doesn't interest me as much as other more recent events.

What events, you ask? The crash of TWA Flight 800 is one of the most widely disbelieved government explanations ever. Numerous other web sites specialize in this case because it is so obviously a cover-up. Then there is the collapse of World Trade Center Building Seven on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. This 47-story building was not hit by an airplane, yet it suddenly and very neatly collapsed onto its own footprint -- as if imploded by professionals. The national news media barely mentioned it that day, and has ignored the story ever since -- except when labeling the skeptics as "kooks."

As far as airplane crashes go, an even more suspicious one (to me) is the crash of American 587, which occurred a month after the September 11 attacks, in New York City, and was probably the work of a shoe bomber. Remember, when this crash occurred, airport security didn't check people's shoes. Richard Reid, who is known as "the" shoe bomber, might have been shoe bomber number two. The official cause of the crash was, as I understand it, that the pilot broke the tail off of the plane by responding to the turbulence left by another plane that had been in the area two minutes earlier. If that was remotely possible, and it isn't, there would be plane crashes every day at every busy airport. (More of my rebuttal here.)

What else? The Oklahoma City Bombing is a case where the official explanation is full of well-documented holes and has been thoroughly researched by several credible people. Vince Foster was murdered (apparently) and much of the evidence was skillfully "lost" or covered up, but nobody in the mainstream press will investigate the incident because (I believe) they're afraid they'll meet the same fate, or perhaps they're afraid of who they will discover was the person ultimately responsible. The official explanation of the Vince Foster case would be more difficult to question except for the stories of the other people associated with Bill Clinton who ended up dead under suspicious circumstances. People like Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and White House intern Mary Mahoney in particular. Also in the Clinton years, you may recall the deadly incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You may also remember when the same heavy-handed feds came after Elian Gonzales with automatic weapons.

People tend to forgive and forget about events like that unless they're reminded constantly. You should recall, if you're old enough, that the Watergate scandal started out as a conspiracy theory. Then when evidence started to surface, it was shown to be an actual conspiracy. So-called conspiracy theories don't just pop up out of nowhere -- they have their origins in the loose ends and unanswered questions that accompany many major events these days.

My political views are those of a right-wing libertarian.

I'm convinced that the Social Security system is already bankrupt, and no elected official (at the federal level) wants to admit it. If you are younger than about 55, you'll probably never see the money you "contribute" again. (It's called a "contribution" even though your only alternative is imprisonment.)

I'm very suspicious of Electronic Voting systems because after you vote, you leave the polling place with only a weak verbal assurance that you have actually cast a vote that will be counted. The USA Patriot Act sounded like a good idea in September 2001, but it was rushed through Congress (without being read) and it can be used in criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism. And there are numerous other abuses of power that are still going on today.

News items linked from the pages of akdart.com are not intended to be a representative cross-section of the news items on a typical commercial news source. Many of the items highlighted pertain to unusual or obscure events, especially those which seem to have been suppressed or overlooked by the national ("mainstream") news media.

When you go to another page on this web site, generally you will find the newest material at the top of the page although items are also loosely sorted in decreasing order of importance. The exception to this rule is the page about the Pledge of Allegiance, on which the oldest material is at the top.

By now you should have read the Disclaimer, which has just been revised and refurbished. The Disclaimer began as a functional parody of the archaic and obtuse boilerplate language often found in the "Terms of Service" at other web sites, or the "License Agreement" that comes with most software these days. In fact, there was more cut-and-paste than legal expertise involved in its construction. As you will see in the Disclaimer, any information on this web site which is not an indisputable statement of proven fact is presented as a Constitutionally-protected expression of opinion. There is a lot of controversial and debatable (politically-oriented) material presented on this web site; however, any actions you take based on whatever you saw, or you think you saw, on this site are entirely your own responsibility.

In any event, I hope this will always be a family-friendly web site. Every effort is being made to adhere to customary standards of decency for material on public display. I can tell you that McAfee SiteAdvisor tested this site and didn't find any significant problems.

While we admit that the Disclaimer is a supererogatory, turgid and humorously verbose tautology, much like this sentence, it nevertheless includes many valid points which are intended to be taken at face value.

A link to the Disclaimer is conspicuously placed on the front page of this web site. {What does "conspicuously" mean? [U.C.C. § 2-102(a)(7) (Proposed Official Partial Redraft Dec. 1997).] A term or clause is conspicuous when it is so written that a reasonable person against whom it is to operate ought to have noticed it. A printed heading in capitals (as: NON-NEGOTIABLE BILL OF LADING) is conspicuous. Language in the body of a form is conspicuous if it is in larger or other contrasting type or color. But in a telegram any stated term is conspicuous. Whether a specific term or clause is conspicuous or not is for decision by the courts.}

Months ago, I began marking items on the front page which had been recently updated, however that quickly became a chore because almost every page is updated regularly; usually once a week. Links are checked periodically to be sure they are still valid.

Many pages on this site are configured in such a way that when you click on a link, it opens a new browser, leaving the old page open. That mode is being phased out, because I have been told it's annoying to some visitors.

These pages look best when viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer. I'm no great fan of Microsoft, but for some reason the material on this web site looks really rough and ragged when viewed with Netscape Navigator. Of course, if you're using Netscape by default, you might not even have Internet Explorer. In that case, take my word for it, you don't know what you're missing.

The HTML comments on my web pages contain supplemental information and candid remarks. Aside from an outdated link here and there, there are occasional commentaries by the editor.

Political correctness (PC) is an effort to make statements as inoffensive as possible, to as many people as possible. PC is also a name for the practice of making social situations as "inclusive" as possible. Usually this means accommodating certain people (the people who choose to alienate themselves from conventional society) by pretending not to be offended or disgusted by their behavior, their beliefs, or the earrings in their lips and noses. However it also means tolerating other things which are far worse.

In contrast, the ideas presented at akdart.com are displayed in a manner which is designed to be as clear, convincing and pragmatic as possible. It would be useless to produce and maintain a web site such as this, if it presented ideas which were candy coated but false. So I may step on a few toes, but I hope you will benefit from your visit to this web site.

The opinions expressed on this web site are presented for the benefit of the people who ordinarily rely upon TV news people, FM shock jocks, and Hollywood propaganda films for information about world events. My pet peeves are discussed, as in an ordinary blog, but with greater detail. Some of these topics are listed here.

Links to akdart.com appear on these web sites:

TWA 800 dot com,
Pro-Gun Women dot com,
Brooke Clark's Electronics Page,
Benchmark Hunting dot com,
Television History - The First 75 Years,
A web page about airline luggage requirements,
Simple Security for Windows,
City Crime Oklahoma Report,
This web page about tachometers,
Another page about recovering deleted files,
The Ears to Hear "Alternative News Sources" page,
Fort Liberty: "Using the First Amendment to Protect the Second Amendment"
This page about premium shortwave receivers,
This discussion of the No-Fly List,
This aviation blog, which is a spinoff of 30,000 feet dot com,
Postage dot com,
Iowa Presidential Watch dot com,
Stop the ACLU dot org. (They liked my page about the ACLU),
Katy Zero Tolerance,
DFW Radio Archives,
The Rhodesian Information and Links Page,
Americans for Prosperity,
The Patriette,
This page at NOAA links to my Brief Explanation of Cookies,
Jesus-Is-Savior dot com,
This page links to "Media bias related to gun control issues",
DFW Radio Archives,
Conservative Think dot com. (They liked the Media Bias page),
The IRS Armory,
This list of Terrorism Groups and Related Issues,
This discussion of the old videotape pictures page,
I Focus News,
The Electronic Evidence Information Center,
Ray's Computer Tips,
This page about national ID cards,
The Phil Valentine Show,
This page about the Oklahoma City bombing,
This page of people holding Macbeth Colorcheckers,
Gandatech dot net,
WA6BOB's Amateur Radio Web Page,
This page which links to the postage rates page,
U.S. First Class Stamps vs. Inflation,
This page which also links to the postage rates page,
This page about pork barrel projects,
at least one page at Jihad Watch,
at least one page at StumbleUpon,
this page of ham radio links,
this page about high gas prices,
Friends of Science,
this page about bloated government bureaucracies,
This page about zero tolerance in schools.
Edward Ringwald calls it "a must see site."
This page about postage rates.
This page about the Oklahoma City bombing.
and apparently dozens of other web pages.

I'm proud to say that akdart.com has been described as paleoconservative, and is mentioned unfavorably at Democratic Underground dot com, in the same list as Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity!

Links are listed as soon as I find out about them (in most cases), and in that order; however, this is not a comprehensive list of all such sites.

This web site engages in [quoting Andrew Sullivan] "Open Journalism -- a fallible, haphazard endeavor to find out more things and let more people know about them."

Thanks for visiting. Please if you find any broken links on this web site, or if you see anything you really like, or you really don't.

"When steganography is outlawed, ."